GREELEY, Colo.  A Colorado woman has filed a lawsuit after agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the ATF, entered her home without a warrant and threatened her and her 8-year old-son while looking for a previous tenant who had left the address more than a year earlier.

According to the filing from Linda Griego, it was on June 15, 2010, when officers with the ATF  as part of the Regional Anti-Gang Enforcement Task Force  violently entered her home without a warrant, handcuffed and pointed guns at her and her son, Colby Frias.

They had multiple machine pistols pointed at my son. I could see the laser sights on his body and he began to freak out. While I was cuffed I had to calm him down while the officers broke down his bedroom door, she said.

Her legal action is against the Greeley Police Department and the ATF for illegally entering the home without a warrant.

David Lane, Griegos attorney, told WND that to this day the agency still has not produced a warrant authorizing it to enter her home. He said Frias continues to suffer nightmares about the events of that day.

A couple of months ago, Frias had a friend over to the house, and the family had ordered pizza. When it arrived, the delivery driver gave a loud knock on the door.

It scared my son so bad he jumped over the couch to hide. This was two years later, and it still bothered him, Griego said.

In the months following the incident, Frias was so scared he had to sleep with his mother.

Here he is an 8-year-old boy, and he is sleeping with mom again, she said.

Can you imagine pointing a gun at an 8-year-old? What a bunch of punks.

I can visualize what it would look like with a six-year-old. There comes a time when government agents should say, "No, that's outside the scope of what government should be doing." We are so far past that time in so many ways that I worry about what our next few years will look like. I hope that at least most of our military, our FBI, and our police will be on the side of our citizens if a showdown comes.

13
posted on 06/07/2012 5:23:08 AM PDT
by Pollster1
(A boy becomes a man when a man is needed - John Steinbeck)

Why isn’t someone at ATF being charged with child endangerment? This was neglegence leading to a life endangering situation. A badge changes nothing, save the political decision of corrupt prosecutors.

Two sides to every story, and we are only hearing the carefully crafted side that this woman’s attorney is allowing her to say; one that is crafted to illicit an emotional response that benefits the attorney.

That being said, this is a DRUG gang task force. So, she is the victim of a failed war on drugs, which continues to trample all over the Constitution.

We can all beat our chests and state we’d take’em out however the most predictable outcome is you would die with your gun in your hand....no deference to you, even the best amoung us who suffer the same fate....

They pick the best time and place for the confrontations, the deck is heavily wieghted in their favor.....

The key here is political pressure to ensure these type of tactical assaults are extremely limited and subject to judicial oversight.

These tactical assaults are necessary to cull the most dangerous amoung us and ensure that our police officers can go home to their families at night. These practices should be extremely limited. Unfortunately, recently and way to often, are used routinely to occasional tragic result....

20
posted on 06/07/2012 5:55:59 AM PDT
by nevergore
("It could be that the purpose of my life is simply to serve as a warning to others.")

They shot people who were trying to escape the fire. The fire the ATF knew was the likely outcome of their assault.

The ATF also pumped in CS tear gas in massive amounts. The tear gas alone killed some of the children. Other children were broke in half by their own muscles due to the phasogene released from the burning CS tear gas. Their back muscles spasmed so tightly they bent the children backwards, breaking their back and killing them.

The people who caused this were proclaimed heros.

21
posted on 06/07/2012 6:09:42 AM PDT
by driftdiver
(I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)

The legal right to shoot anybody breaking into your home exists everywhere and is the oldest idea of Anglo-Saxon common law. No jury in America would ever convict anybody for it.

This actually happened once in Western Md. a few years after the drug war got started and "no-knock" raids were just getting started, several dead fibbies and state cops, and a jury took less than half an hour to find the defendant innocent on all charges and, near as I can tell, that had the effect of shutting down no-knock raids for some time afterwards. That was well before the internet age however and I've not been able to find any reference to the story on the net in recent years.

“Two sides to every story, and we are only hearing the carefully crafted side that this womans attorney is allowing her to say; one that is crafted to illicit an emotional response that benefits the attorney.”

Sure, that means you think she did something wrong that led to a warrantless no-knock raid.

25
posted on 06/07/2012 6:26:30 AM PDT
by driftdiver
(I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)

There was a case in Minneapolis a decade or so back where an immigrant (Hmong) family was invaded in a wrong address scenario. The father fought back with a shotgun, and the SWAT team backed off. No one died or was wounded, and the family ended up with a substantial six figure settlement.

Of course she did something wrong, since we have so many laws that everyone commits a felony by lunchtime, on average. The relevant question is did she do what was stated by the LE officers as the basis for their warrant, which of course she did not, since the warrant wasn't even in her name.

nevergore said: "They pick the best time and place for the confrontations,..."

I don't think that you can reasonably claim this, as well as recognize that their actual suspect wasn't in the home and hadn't been for a year. There is something definitely defective in their process. I think it is that they simply don't care who gets hurt. This will eventually backfire badly for them, I think.

The Rambo’s that day were the ones entering the house illegally. No apologies, just I hope you have a better day than up to this point. Talk about arrogance, abuse of power and utter contempt for the citizenry.

If you know an order is illegal, immoral and unconstitutional do you obey it? If your answer is I just followed my orders then I ask where have we heard that before?

Colorado Woman Sues ATF for Entering Home without a Warrant, Pointing Guns at 8 Year Old

It should have been a "feed Dale Price's hogs" moment (from the novel "Unintended Consequences"). Every one of those ATF agents should have gone home in a body bag. Only when that happens will this jackbooted crap begin to wane.

38
posted on 06/07/2012 7:23:03 AM PDT
by backwoods-engineer
(I will vote against ANY presidential candidate who had non-citizen parents.)

What everyone is assuming is that it was a SEARCH warrant when it almost certainly an ARREST warrant for the lady she said no longer lived there. That little tidbit is left out by the attorney, intentionally.

Since the homeowner was not the person the warrant was for, no, she would not get a copy of the warrant. So, thus without further information it would seem to be “warrantless.”

Courts make a serious effort to serve warrants at the last known address.

Again, the story does not give the other side of the story with important details such as whether any surveillance was done on the address that would support the courts decision to serve said warrant there. Or the veracity of the person giving the statement to the press.

DD, the woman admits that the police knocked. So much for the no-knock raid argument.

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